Happiness After Infidelity

When you are right there at the moment of discovery that your spouse cheated on you, you are literally choking on feelings that can never be aptly described in words. You feel betrayed, humiliated, laughed at, and discarded. All those little clues came flashing back, one after the other, in the very same way described by those who had near-death experiences, except that they saw milestones in their lives while you saw carefully hidden signs of cheating.

It was a time when the word happiness had an empty meaning. You tell yourself it was not your fault but then you ask again and felt maybe it was. You look for things to occupy your mind and then wonder what for. You try to be happy and you say why bother. You felt so lonely because your happiness depended on another person who is now gone.

This is one scenario faced by people who have been cheated on. After being robbed of happiness by a cheating partner, they further deprive themselves of the opportunity to bring back that happiness. Believe it or not, achieving happiness after infidelity is as real as can be.

Like all other paths to recovery, it would need the participation of the people concerned to make it work. True happiness per se remains an elusive dream for most human beings because of the conditions we set on ourselves to be happy. I can only be happy if... I will no longer be lonely when... I cannot be happy because...We make it so difficult for ourselves to be happy that we almost always succeed in making our lives more miserable.

More than the happiness of finding a new man is the joy of finding a new and better man. More than the sense of accomplishment in making it on one's own is the sense of gratitude in being released from a life of doubt and lies. Yes, there is happiness after infidelity.

When the Innocent Suffers

People caught in the ugly mess of spousal cheating and its consequences can sometimes get so engrossed with their own feelings that they forget that there are other people suffering with them. As they envelop themselves in their own sense of grief, guilt, anger and depression, their innocent children get to suffer as well. No one goes through infidelity completely unscathed.

Children get to have the front seats of the drama unfolding in their home. As the battle rages, specifically when a spouse is caught cheating on the other, every move made and every word spoken cuts through the young hearts and minds of these children who are not yet truly equipped to process what is happening. Things don't get better when a couple opts for divorce as children are forced to deal with the trauma of separation and the possibility of not getting to know one parent for a large part of their lives, if not never.

Having a broken family presents emotional, physical and psychological challenges that are not typically encountered by families who are together. In the case of parents who have sole responsibility of taking care of the children, the pressure to compensate for the absence of the other can be immense. Even in a shared custody scenario, there can be heavy pressure of having to deal with the irregular situation. If adults find it difficult both ways, imagine how difficult it is for the children who ordinarily have no say on the matter.

We have seen far too many stories of children gone astray because of their inability to handle the pressures of seeing their parents build individual and separate lives while caught in the middle. Fortunately, we have also witnessed the triumph of many who have gone through the same experience but managed to come better in spite of the great odds. Estranged couples need to look after the welfare of their children while dealing with their own pains so that the innocent do not become an unwilling collateral damage to marital infidelity.

Nevada Senator Ensign Will Resign May 3 to Avoid Ethics Inquiry of Affair

Republican Senator John Ensign of Nevada, saying he wanted to spare his family the emotional “wear and tear” of an ethics inquiry into an extramarital affair, said he will resign his office effective May 3.

Ensign, 53, a veterinarian first elected to the Senate in 2000, said in March that he wouldn’t seek a third term next year. He made his resignation announcement yesterday on his Senate website.

He disclosed in June 2009 that he had had an affair with a campaign worker, Cindy Hampton, whose husband, Doug, was an aide on his Senate staff. The Justice Department said last December that Ensign was no longer a target of a probe into whether a severance payment he made to Cindy Hampton was an illegal campaign contribution.

“Senator Ensign has made the appropriate decision,” the Senate Ethics Committee, which had kept looking into allegations stemming from the matter, said in a statement from committee head Barbara Boxer, a California Democrat, and the vice chairman, Georgia Republican Johnny Isakson.

The ethics panel signaled in February it was intensifying its inquiry by hiring an outside counsel to assist in the investigation, which could have led to public hearings. The committee will lose its jurisdiction over Ensign with his resignation. The ethics committee’s statement after the resignation said it had “worked diligently for 22 months on this matter and will complete its work in a timely fashion.”
Cost `Too Great'

On his website, Ensign said that “while I stand behind my firm belief that I have not violated any law, rule, or standard of conduct of the Senate, and I have fought to prove this publicly, I will not continue to subject my family, my constituents, or the Senate to any further rounds of investigation, depositions, drawn out proceedings, or especially public hearings. For my family and me, this continued personal cost is simply too great.”

After the senator acknowledged the affair, Ensign’s parents paid $96,000 to Cindy and Doug Hampton and two of their children. A lawyer for Ensign, Paul Coggins, said in July 2009 that the payment was made “out of concern for the well-being of long-time family friends during a difficult time.”

Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a watchdog group, said that “given his outrageous conduct, it is unbelievable Senator Ensign was allowed to linger for so long. At least the senator will finally be gone and Americans can put this latest politician-behaving-badly behind us.”
Successor Decision

Ensign resigned his fourth-ranking post in the Senate Republican leadership after he confirmed the affair.

U.S. Representatives Dean Heller, a Republican, and Shelley Berkley, a Democrat, have already announced their candidacies for the Senate seat.

Governor Brian Sandoval, a Republican, can name a successor to fill the seat through the end of Ensign’s term and may select Heller, making him the incumbent in next year’s election. Sandoval issued a statement saying “I respect the decision he has made” and thanking Ensign for his service

Ensign served two terms in the U.S. House before losing a 1998 Senate race to incumbent Harry Reid, a Democrat, by fewer than 500 votes. He ran successfully for the Senate two years later and was re-elected in 2006.

Reid, now the Senate majority leader, said in a statement that he has “appreciated John’s partnership in working with me to address our state’s needs. He was a strong advocate for Nevada, and worked for many years to improve our state.”

Reid also said, “I know this is a difficult time for the family and I wish them all well as they work through it.”

$6.5 Million Settlement in Wrongful Conviction

Jeffrey Deskovic spent half of his life in prison for a rape and murder he did not commit, but it was only this week, four and a half years after his release, that he received some measure of justice: a $6.5 million settlement with Westchester County on a federal civil-rights lawsuit stemming from his wrongful conviction.

Mr. Deskovic was convicted of raping, beating and strangling a high school classmate in Peekskill, N.Y., at age 17. He was 32 at the time of his release, exonerated by DNA testing of the semen retrieved from the victim, which was later linked to another man.

A test done on the same semen sample cleared Mr. Deskovic at the time of his arrest, but a forensic expert testifying for the prosecution said it was because the victim had had sex with another man before Mr. Deskovic raped her. That theory and Mr. Deskovic’s confession, extracted after hours of interrogation, played major roles in his conviction.

The settlement was unanimously approved by the Westchester County Board of Legislators late Monday, on behalf of the county, its chief medical examiner at the time and the forensic expert, Dr. Louis Roh.

In a statement on Tuesday, Mr. Deskovic and his lawyers, from the Manhattan law firm of Neufeld, Scheck and Brustin, said they hoped that other cases in which Dr. Roh had testified would be re-examined, and any wrongdoing corrected.

Another portion of the lawsuit, directed against the police officers who investigated the crime, and are accused of coercing the confession used as key evidence in his trial, is unresolved.

Mr. Deskovic is set to receive $4 million this year and the remainder of the settlement in 2012. His mother, Linda McGarr, who was also a plaintiff in the lawsuit, will receive $250,000. Mr. Deskovic is now 37, living in New York City, finishing a master’s degree at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and traveling the country to tell his story. He said he no longer played a lot of Ping-Pong, a game he learned — and learned to like — in prison.

“There are a lot of things in my life, socially, that I still need to put together,” Mr. Deskovic said in an interview. “My background, what happened to me, it’s still a hindrance.”

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: 

An article in some editions on Wednesday about the partial settlement of a lawsuit by a Westchester County man, Jeffrey Deskovic, who was wrongly convicted of rape, misstated the role of the police in obtaining Mr. Desovic’s confession. They are accused by Mr. Deskovic, in an unresolved portion of his lawsuit, of coercing his confession; a court has not established that they did so.

Carla Bruni-Sarkozi did pre-marriage claim to being "easily bored by monogamy"

France' s President Nicolas Sarkozy threatened to "smash the face" of
a political editor during a 40-minute conversation after his magazine suggested
Carla Bruni was a man-eater, a new biography discloses. The French president's
threat was provoked by an article in Le Point news magazine offering "24
tips to the President ahead of his marriage to Mademoiselle Bruni".
One piece of advice was: "Do not introduce your new wife to your sons,
Barack Obama or any handsome men." In a new book called M. Le President,
Franz-Olivier Giesbert, the director of Le Point, gives a blow by blow account
of the president's tirade following the article.
Sarkozy allegedly called shortly after publication in January, 2008, started
with a few niceties before suddenly turning apoplectic. "This article is
filth and I should smash your face in," he reportedly told Giesbert.
Giesbert replied: "Are you threatening me?"
Sarkozy hit back: "You deserve it. I don't know what's holding me back."
"There's no reason for you and Carla to feel insulted," replied the
author.
"I'm sure you'd blow your top if I wrote that your wife was a whore that
everyone had slept with and even wanted to have sex with your children,"
the president went on.
"Never did our magazine suggest Carla was a whore," said Giesbert.
Bruni-Sarkozy, 43, earned a reputation for promiscuity because of her string
of celebrity lovers including Mick Jagger, Eric Clapton and Donald Trump before
marrying Mr Sarkozy more than two years ago. Her pre-marriage claim to being
"easily bored by monogamy" has become a notorious quote.
She also went out with a well-known philosopher before dropping him for his
son, Raphael Enthoven, with whom she has a son.
Sarkozy insisted that the magazine issue a written apology, which was denied.
"You'll see what I'm going to do to you," he threatened.
Giesbert said the president subsequently sought to pressure Le Point's owner,
the luxury goods billionaire Francois Pinault, into firing Giesbert, to no avail.
Giesbert said it was Mrs Bruni-Sarkozy who defused the situation by taking
the phone and saying: "He only flew off the handle because he loves me
so much."
Giesbert, 62, said he has been subjected several times to such tirades with
"schoolboy vocabulary."
The author is renowned for writing biting but accurate biographies of French
presidents from the late Socialist Francois Mitterrand - in which he revealed
his shady links to the collaborationist Vichy regime — and Jacques Chirac.
The biography of Sarkozy's predecessor, The Tragedy of The President, was a
bestseller and portrayed Chirac as a sex-obsessed "ogre" who "gulps
down everything" but "retains nothing, not even friends".
Sarkozy is equally pilloried as a "child king" who is "drunk
on himself", "immature" and a "weathervane" who is
"tyrannical" with his entourage and above all his friends.
However, Giesbert counters the widely held view that Sarkozy is a philistine.
During a recent encounter, the president impressed him by quoting at length
from a host of authors from Racine to Maupassant.
So the author, who is very well read, tried to trip him up by talking about
John Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath and its main protagonist, whose surname, he
said, was Jed.
"No, Joad," hit back Sarkozy.
"If he had mugged up on a few cheat cards the day before, I would have
rumbled him," he said.
He believes Sarkozy's artistic wife had a hand, but admits: "He is anything
but uncultured."

New Mac Software to Catch a Cheating Spouse

Aobo Software, the global award-winning company of spy and access control software, announced the release of Aobo Mac Keylogger 3.3. Aobo Mac OS X Keylogger is a piece of spy software targeting the Mac platform that can be used to monitor all of users activities on the Mac computer. This keylogger can be applied to catch a cheating spouse.

What Can You Do With Aobo Mac Keylogger?

• Monitor your spouse and/or kids online activities.Curious children often search for inappropriate content or chat with bad guys online. Now with the Mac keylogger you can know everything and protect them.
• Catch a cheating spouse.Have you suspected that your spouse is cheating on you? Why he/she cleans the tracks on the computer? Now with the keylogger for Mac he/she can't hide anymore.

New Features of Aobo Mac Keylogger 3.3:
* Record Skype conversations (both sides)
* Record AIM conversations (both sides)
* Record iChat conversations (both sides)
* Record Adium conversations (both sides)
* Record MSN conversations (both sides)
* Customize log location
* Compress screenshots to reduce size
* Optional to send screenshots by email


Pricing and Availability:
Mac Keylogger 3.3 is $79.95 USD (or equivalent amount in other currencies) and available from the Mac Keylogger website.

Marriage and Family Therapist and Psychotherapist Advice

Dr. Robert Huizenga, CSW, LMFT, is a Marriage and Family Therapist and Psychotherapist that specializes in the area of marital infidelity.

Items on his list that might be warning signs of a potentially cheating husband include:

• He starts buying his own underwear.
• He insists that the child seat, toys, etc., are kept out of his car.
• He has a sudden desire to be helpful with the laundry.

These may seem inconsequential at first sight, but in hindsight they can make a great deal of sense. It is often the little things that are the tell tell-tale signs of larger ones.

Doctor also mentions sex, even in this seemingly simple area, there are some warning signs:

• Two key points however, are: (A)The telltale sign of a cheating spouse? Having to ask that question in the first place.(B)Your intuition (gut feeling) tells you that something is not right.
• He/she suddenly wants to try new love techniques, or sex suddenly becomes rougher.
• He/she fairly suddenly has less interest in sex.
• He/she suddenly wants more sex, more often.

Difference Between Male Infidelity and Female Cheating

In a committed relationship nothing hurts more, or is harder to recover from, than infidelity, and this is even truer when it’s the female partner who’s been doing the cheating. In recent years I’ve noticed a precipitous rise in the number of men who have been betrayed by adultery, and while there’s an overall consensus among professionals that female infidelity is on the rise, the trend doesn’t garner nearly as much attention as male infidelity That’s surprising, because female infidelity is often much more damaging to a marriage. Don’t get me wrong: Male cheating is definitely harmful. But when a woman fools around, it’s often the death knell to a couple’s relationship.

It's often said that men cheat for sex, while women cheat for love, the theory being that men can more easily compartmentalize sex and emotion, while women typically need to experience an emotional connection to a person before feeling sexual desire. Without those pesky emotions to stand in the way of a potential mistake, a guy is much more likely to get himself into trouble (especially if alcohol is involved and inhibitions are down) or to get involved with someone for whom he has no feelings.

That’s not to say that men don't cheat because they're unhappy, in search of an emotional connection or simply bored in their relationship (a topic we’re currently analyzing at Good in Bed), but many of the men I've encountered who have cheated on their wives often have no desire to leave their primary relationship. Many of them even characterize themselves as happily married with satisfying sex lives.

That’s one of the reasons there's often a better chance that a couple will stay together and try to work things out when it’s the man who’s doing the cheating, rather than the woman. For men, cheating often tends to be opportunistic—they’re in the wrong place at the wrong time and the cheating doesn’t necessarily mean anything emotionally—whereas with women the desire to cheat is often less opportunistic and more deeply felt. It’s often more a matter of the heart than of the genitals. Sure, some women cheat for the sex, but many also cheat for another chance at love, or to confirm to themselves that their primary relationship is really over. A woman who cheats is often a woman who doesn't want to work it out. She's already invested time trying to work it out, and she's done. It's too late.

While there aren't any hard statistics on female infidelity, most experts agree that it's on the rise, especially among women who have their own careers and a degree of financial independence. A University of Washington study found that people who earned $75,000 or more per year were 1.5 times more likely to have had extramarital sex than those earning less than $30,000. And with so many women in the workplace, it’s no surprise that 46 percent of women and 62 percent of men cheated on their spouses with someone they met through work.

Another big factor in the rise in female infidelity is the Internet. Sexual infidelity often starts with emotional infidelity, and digital technologies offer an abundance of opportunity for emotional (and thrilling) connections: The return of an ex, a workplace flirtation, a Facebook friendship that becomes more than "just friends." Women are extremely susceptible to “emotional infidelity,” which starts as friendship, often with colleagues or seemingly harmless online relationships, and slowly progresses to something more. A gradual blurring of the lines between friendship and deeper intimacy draws even happily partnered people into relationships they never saw coming.

So what are some of the signs that a woman could be cheating or thinking about it?

- She shows less general interest in her partner's comings and goings

- She dresses up for work, but seems to care less about whether her partner finds her attractive

- She has less interest in sex with her partner

- She's keeping an irregular schedule and spending more time at work

- She seems happy, except when she's around her partner

- She shows less tolerance of her partner's friends and family

- There are unresolved issues in the relationship that have either been ignored or not resolved in a way that's satisfying to her

- She's in a child-centric marriage that prioritizes parenting and neglects a couple's relationship, with few opportunities for romance and alone time

Guys, think your wife would never cheat? Think again. When men get angry about something, they tend to lash out, but women often self-silence and bottle up their emotions. As Helen E. Fisher, research professor of anthropology at Rutgers University, says, "Men want to think women don't cheat, and women want men to think they don't cheat, and therefore the sexes have been playing a little psychological game with each other." Maybe this isn’t so much a game as a reflection of the double standard and culture of forgiveness that favors men—“boys will be boys,” as the adage goes—when they cheat. But as we’re learning, cheating is an equal opportunity sport, one that women are just as likely as men to play.

Federal charge for man cleared of 1972 NY slaying

ROCHESTER, N.Y. — A 78-year-old man recently acquitted of killing a blind woman in 1972 has been hit with a federal charge that he failed to register as a sex offender.

Willie James Kimble was arraigned Tuesday and ordered held until a bail hearing in April. He did not enter a plea and will be assigned a lawyer. If convicted, he could get 10 years in prison.

Kimble was cleared March 10 of bludgeoning to death Annie Mae Cray at her Rochester home in October 1972. It was one of the nation's oldest cold-case murders to come to trial.

In 2009, police obtained a DNA match from a semen-stained blanket kept in police storage for almost 38 years. Kimble skipped town while the murder was being re-examined and was tracked down in Florida last year.